When shipping folded tissue products, such as cartons of facial tissues, a significant portion of the transportation costs incurred are due to shipping air because of the low density of the tissues. Consequently, when shipping by truck, for example, the volume capacity of the truck is reached before the weight capacity. Also, on the retailers' shelves, the bulkiness of the tissue products consumes shelf space and therefore limits the number of items the retailers can stock. Unfortunately, placing more tissues into a given carton to increase shipping cost efficiency and/or reduce consumption of retail shelf space creates compression within the stack of tissues and thereby makes it difficult for the user to remove the first few tissues from the carton without tearing them.
While the retailer often desires products which use less shelf space, there are disadvantages to using compressed or concentrated products. For example, one disadvantage is that compressed tissue stacks dispense poorly when packaged in traditional flat tissue cartons. Therefore, there is a need for tissue products that can be shipped more economically without sacrificing ease of dispensing or presence of the product on the retailer's shelf.